A Mesoscale Approach for Concrete Block Masonry

A comprehensive understanding of the concrete block masonry's mesostructure on its macroscopic mechanical behavior is meaningful for modern masonry. The mesoscale numerical method provides an extremely powerful analyzing tool for this problem. However, it is still difficult to analyze the mesomodel efficiently due to a large number of operating processes caused by the components' nonlinear mechanical properties. An efficient finite-element-method-based mesoscale approach for concrete block masonry was introduced in this paper. The benchmark test results obtained show that this approach is able to simulate the concrete block masonry and analyze its failure. According to the simulation studies, a positive effect of mortar and concrete block strength on masonry compressive strength was obtained. Besides, an obvious nonlinear relationship between the masonry compressive strength and the mortar was also observed.